


Killing the Ember

by Zoasyte



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angry Sex, Child Abuse, Clint Feels, Clint is BAMF, Drug Abuse, First Kiss, First Time, God these tags make this story sound depressing, Homophobia, Hurt Steve, Hurt Tony, M/M, Natasha might kill Steve, Possessive Steve, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rating May Change, Slow Burn, Stalking, Steve Has Issues, Steve is kind of a dick but with good reason, Steve is the king of mixed signals, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, There is humor I swear, Tony Has Issues, Tony has sex for the wrong reasons, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 07:37:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1170411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoasyte/pseuds/Zoasyte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ok not gonna lie I SUCK at summaries. </p>
<p>Basically Steve and Tony fall in love not just lust but honest to god unconditional love but they take the very very long painful way to get there and just because you love some one doesn't mean your good for them or that you should even be with them. People get hurt. Tony is a selfish prick. Steve has no idea who the hell he is. And Natasha is trying very hard not to kill Steve but for other reasons besides his stupidity. Clint fixes Tony and then breaks him again. Bruce and Thor try to keep the peace but have their own issues to deal with.<br/>There is a stalker who isn't really a stalker but who can't seem to stop obsessing over Tony Stark. Tony goes to extremes to make the nightmares go away and get over the addictions and discovers things about himself and his past in the process that he doesn't really like. </p>
<p>Oh did I mention the stalker might be Tonys brother and a mutant</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And we all fall down

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't my first fan fiction but it is my first time posting and my first time in this fandom so please go easy on me. Constructive critisism is strongly encouraged. Don't know how long the finished product is going to be maybe around 30K maybe more depends how difficult the characters are to get right. I'm not sure if I have their voices down yet but hopefully its readable. I don't have a Beta but if anyone is interested please e-mail me at zoasyte@yahoo.com. All mistakes are mine so if you find anything please point it out and I'll fix it. I'll try to post a chapter ever few days I have the story mapped out and outlined but I haven't decided if I'm going to finish this story mainly because I don't know if anyone will like it but I'll post up the first few chapter as soon as I can and depending on the reaction I'll move forward. To say that I'm nervous would be an understatement.... deep breath here goes.
> 
> Small note: I changed a few lines in the first chapter and a little in the second nothing major but I wanted to change the tone of the over all story based on how serious chapter three ended up being. So I would recommend re-reading the first two chapters. But its not needed.

It had been 15 months since the battle of New York, 3 month since Tony had the arc reactor removed, 1 month since Pepper had left him and about 29 days since he had last been sober.  
It was one am and Tony was laying flat on his back in the middle of his workshop with a couple of liquor bottles strewn on the floor, which in of itself wasn’t that unusual for him. But throw in the empty syringe and drug paraphernalia along with JARVIS having been muted and Dummy, U and Butterfinger’s partially repaired remains piled in the corner and you have cause for concern. Not to mention a very morose Billie Holliday playing softly through the speakers instead of the standard AC/DC. 

This was the sight that greeted Natasha’s eyes once she managed to hack the keypad locking her out of the workshop. She allowed herself a moment to close her eyes and take a deep breath in exasperation.

“I found him Clint.” She spoke into the standard issued S.H.E.I.L.D comm hidden in her ear.

“Is he ok?” Was the distorted reply, they really needed to get Stark to upgrade their comms if they ever managed to keep him sober longer than an hour that is. 

“He’s alive.”

“That really doesn’t tell me if he’s ok.”

“I’m aware, just get your ass down here I need help dragging him to the bathroom and cleaning him up.”

This wasn’t exactly how Clint wanted to spend his only day off in a month, but it was better then sitting in a tree in Bolivia for 24 hours. He surveyed the destruction of the living room were he had been searching for their wayward genius. 

If he didn’t know for a fact that the tower had been fully restored since the Chinari battle he would have thought no repairs had been made since Loki fought Stark here that fateful day.  
Anything that could be broken was. The widow that separated the floor from the Manhattan skyline was shattered, electronics were gutted, and couch stuffing littered the shiny tile floors. Basically it looked like the Hulk had gone to town. Clint would bet good money that Tony’s bedroom and office looked just as bad if not worse. 

“Any day now Clint.” came the aggravated voice of his partner through his comm.

“On my way.” Clint cringed and hastily ran to the elevator, he would have preferred to take the vents but it would have taken 5 minutes longer then the elevator and Nat didn’t seem to be in a patient mood today.

When he got down to the lower levels and made his way to the workshop he was greeted with the sight of Natasha crouched by a clearly unconscious Tony Stark. If his eyesight weren’t so sharp he would have thought Tony was dead. 

“Wow he looks like shit … and I’ve seen him pretty wasted.” 

Thor’s birthday party came to mind. Who knew a keg stand would have that kind of effect on an Asgardian? Who the hell knew you could do a keg stand with thousand-dollar whiskey? A small smirk graced the archers lips briefly at the memory before the reality of the current situation hit home. He glanced at the syringe and gritted his teeth.

“Where the hell is JAVIS he hasn’t responded to me since we got here. He suppose to fucking monitor Tony, Goddamnit!”

“He’s muted only Tony can reactivate him…now stop yelling and help me with Stark.” 

To say Natasha was annoyed would be an understatement, don’t get her wrong she wasn’t surprised by Tony’s behavior, not at all, but as much as she hated to admit it she was disappointed.   
She was actually starting to like the guy, she was starting to consider him a friend; she blamed Clint for that slip in judgment. Tony had gone above and beyond to help Clint after what Loki had done to him. He had recommended Clint to the best therapist, took him out when everyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. was treating him like a pariah, and even picked up the phone and talked Clint down when he had nightmares in the middle of the night.  
Clint was a like a brother to her and it killed her that she couldn’t be there for him when he was going through so much. Immediately after the battle Fury had sent her on a deep undercover mission in South America infiltrating some gunrunners that had managed to get their hands on some of the alien technology that S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn’t been able to track down and recover. She knew sending her on the mission was purely strategic on Fury’s part it was only a matter of time before all the news coverage would make it impossible for her to go undercover anymore and Fury wanted to use her while he still could. That knowledge didn’t change the fact that she took it personally that she wasn’t allowed to aide in Clint’s recovery. She had apparently been needlessly worried because by the time she got back from her mission Clint was…well he was doing good, not great and far from fully recovered but much better then Natasha had expected.  
And now she had to deal with this. They carried Tony’s limp body into the adjacent bathroom that was attached to the workshop. Tony spared no expense when it came to his creature comforts and had a huge walk-in shower with multiple showerheads that could easily fit all three of them. They placed him on the floor; Clint kneeled down and dragged Tony into his lap leaning the unconscious man’s upper body against his chest. He wrapped his arms around Tony and gently leaned his head back on his shoulder.

“Come on buddy wake up.” Clint was starting to get nervous he slapped Tony’s face lightly.  
“Hey Tony you dick don’t do this to me wake the fuck up!”

Natasha looked at the controls for the showerheads. “This looks more confusing then the damn keypad.” She muttered to herself. She jabbed some buttons and turned a knob and got all but two of the showerheads to start spraying cold water on Clint and Tony’s prone form.

“Fuck Nat thats cold!”  
“Don’t be a baby you’ve dealt with worse. Is he waking up check his vitals again.”

Suddenly Tony started to groan and his eyelids started to flutter. Then with out much warning he started to throw up all the contents of his stomach which amount to about 7 liters of scotch by the looks of it.   
“Shit!” Clint rolled Tony onto his side and tried to get him on his hands and knees.

“That is so fucking gross you owe me so big for this shit Tony I’m going to smell rancid scotch in my nose for days.” 

Clint stood and hunched over Tony wrapping one of his arms around Tony’s waist and the other around his chest, palm pressed to Tony’s heart to make sure his heart rate was regular and he wasn’t about to keel over from a heart attack. Something Clint had been secretly concerned about ever since Tony had confided in him the amount of damage his heart sustained during the removal of the ARC reactor. 

“We need to take him to S.H.E.I.L.D. medical right now. He probably has severe alcohol poisoning not to mention the effect of whatever he shot himself up with in that syringe.”

Suddenly the limp body being held wasn’t so limp anymore. Hands started scrambling and clawing at Clint’s arms.

“No…no…no…no fucking hospital…. Please god no!”  
Whimpered a disoriented Tony at Natasha’s suggestion.  
God he felt like shit, it tasted like a skunk died in his mouth and he had no idea were he was. Things slowly started to register once he stopped throwing up. Like the freezing water raining down on him, the warm arms wrapped around his body, and the hard tile floor under his knees.  
How the hell did he end up in the shower with Clint and why were his clothes still on? And could some one stop the drum line running through his head please!

“Ah… so he speaks thank you so much for deeming us worthy of your opinion oh great genius.” Whispered Clint sweetly in Tony’s ear. “But…yeah… FUCK YOU!!!” 

“Damn it Clint I’m right here you dick! You don’t have to yell…. my head feel like it’s been threw a meat grinder” Tony gasped out threw clenched teeth, trying to will back the nausea and pain.

“That would be your liver” was Natasha’s quite reply; a quite Natasha was an extremely pissed Natasha. Tony was so screwed.


	2. Ashes to Ashes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet Asher

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me so long to post this chapter I'm in the middle of writing my thesis so I'm a little bogged down, but writing this fic is a nice way to decompress. I thought it over and desided to lighten up the story a tad it was getting very dark very fast and Steve was starting to sound like an a**hole. So I'm rewriting some of the chapters right now I'm trying to not make it such a monsterous story I don't want to bite off more than I can chew. Hope you guys like it :-) 
> 
> By the way when I was writing Asher I had a mental picture of a young Jensen Ackles :-)

Anyone walking down the street in front of Stark Tower at one am that Monday morning would have noticed the coiling sweet sent in the air, but they wouldn’t have seen the young man leaning against the lamp post smoking the clove cigarettes. Mainly because he didn’t want them to see him, it was easy really, just a simple whisper like fingers brushing a stray hair behind your ear. That’s all Asher needed to do to convince anyone within a thirty feet radius that he just wasn’t there. It was a trick he had only recently perfected and it really only worked on people who weren’t actively looking for him or people who didn’t know what he looked like but in his line of work it made him one of a kind. However, now the same gift that had made him infamous to a certain select clientele was now making his life a living hell. 

Asher hugged the dirty denim jacket closer to his body he shivered uncontrollably, it wasn’t him…. he wasn’t cold damn it! It was Stark, something was happening up their in the fortress of solitude that was hurting Stark making him ill making him choke and gag with pain something was freezing his body and wracking it with chills. And Asher couldn’t do a damn thing about it he couldn’t control how it affected him he couldn’t turn it off, anything Stark felt he felt too and it was pissing him off it was affecting his work. He had to cancel three very well paying contract jobs because of this shit. 

He couldn’t really pin point when it had begun his memory of that night was still a little foggy, but he had an idea. It was a few months ago he had been hired to recover some artwork from a museum and return it to its rightful owner; at least that’s what he told himself it made his job easier. He didn’t like the moniker of thief it made him sound too common and he was anything but common. He was more a jack-of-all-trades maybe even a mercenary; depending on the job and the pay and what kind of mood he was in of course. 

A gala was being held in the museum to help fund research for some disease or something, he really didn’t care all he cared about was the fact that security was going to be low and there was going to be a lot of people to blend in with. He had manage to sneak in through the back and blend in with the rest of the wait staff no one noticed him or questioned his presence, because again he could just will them not too. It was a handy mutant trick to have for a person with his job set. He was going about his business passing out flutes of champagne no one even giving him a second glance… well except for Him. Stark, Anthony Stark, Asher of course knew who he was he was fucking Ironman he had been all over the news not just recently but pretty much his entire life. For some reason Stark seemed to be looking right at him.

Asher glanced up at the billionaire through his periphery and focused his will a little harder in Starks general direction, never really giving the unusual behavior a second thought. He wasn’t perfect he still had off days and he didn’t really know the full extent of his abilities he was only 17 and still very new to the mutant world. The criminal world he was an old hat at but the whole mutant thing he was still working out. 

He kept going about his business passing out alcohol to vapid trophy wives and overweight entitled assholes while still trying to meander towards the closed off parts of the museum to get access to the tiny porcelain statue he had been hired to recover. He was just a few feet away from the darkened room that housed the exhibit were his goal lay when he felt it. 

Eyes boring into his back like twin lasers, warmth spreading down his spine. He realized suddenly he had been feeling this sensation since he walked into the room. He glanced up and immediately locked eyes with deep chocolate brown pools framed by the longest lashes he had ever seen.

It felt like the wind had been knocked out of him, he felt his chest tighten and his eyes water, he was drowning and a deep dark weight settling onto his shoulders pushing him down. He tried to close his eyes but he couldn’t he had no control! Anxiety started to choke his throat and visions of space started to encroach his mind. He wanted to scream but what would be the point no one can hear you scream in space. And that’s were he was in space, with every fiber of his being he knew he was lost some where in the abyss with no hope and an all consuming fear rising up in his body.  
He was falling, he was dying, he was giving up.  
And just as quickly as it had begun it was over. 

When Asher regained control of his body he was gasping on his hands and knees staring at his reflection in the shiny tile floor at least he thought it was his reflection… for second there he could have sworn it was….No! It couldn’t have been he was hallucinating the light was playing tricks on him. 

He shook his head and scrunched his eyes closed when he opened them again and looked up he saw a crowd of people hovering around Tony Stark who was in a similar position as him except unlike him Stark had a beautiful blond woman helping him up and escorting him away from the crowd. Asher slowly got to his feet and quickly took advantage of the distraction to complete his mission. 

As he slipped out the back exit clutching a satchel that housed his prize he suddenly realized the thoughts of dying and of giving up they weren’t his. They belonged to Stark.

Ever since that day Asher’s life had been a living hell. His nights had been racked with nightmares that weren’t his, feeling emotions that weren’t his and worst of all was the pain …God the pain was starting to become unbearable.   
So that brings him here on a humid muggy night, technically morning, standing outside Stark tower looking up trying to figure out if he should talk to Stark explain the situation and maybe help him, because honestly how anyone could possibly function with the amount a pain thrumming through Starks head was beyond him. Or just simply kill him and put him out of his misery. The second option seems like the more humane option to Asher. It wasn’t like he had never taken a life before; he could do it if he had to. But the minute he tried to fathom his life without Stark a feeling of despair and anguish like nothing he had ever felt consumed him, welling up inside his chest.   
He took a deep breath and threw his clove to the ground watching it fall between the slits of a sewer grill. God he felt like a menopausal woman one minute happy and fine the next horribly depressed all he needed now were the fucking hot flashes. He pushed himself away from the lamp post with a determined set to his shoulders he was going up there and dealing with this shit even if it killed him. He couldn’t do this any more it had almost been three months of this bipolar shit he needed to nip this in the bub right now. 

Just as he took his first steps towards the tower beginning to assess the best way in, he heard it, a subtle whine. He looked up in time to see a jet hover up from the roof of the tower and fly away.  
“Well fuck me.”

Stark was in that jet going god knows were for god knows how long. Asher was so screwed.


	3. Pocket full of Posies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We finally get to Steve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this is taking so long to get out but I had a huge bout of writers block, but hopefully I'm over it I want to get this out by June. Also I reworked a few lines in the first two chapters to reflect the serious tone chapter 3 took...which by the way I did not plan :/ So I recommend re-reading those two chapters if you want. Its not necessary . But it's a much smoother read. Again if anyone is interested in being my beta let me know please :-) thank you hope you like it.

He was drenched in sweat his white t-shirt almost transparent from the moisture, normally Steve would have been embarrassed at the immodesty but it was one a.m. and the streets of his quite Brooklyn neighborhood were empty. He had been running for what seemed like hours, but in all honesty was probably only 2 or 3 hours at most.

He had been pushing himself to extremes. He wanted to feel. He wanted to feel the burn in his legs, the sting in his lungs, the ach in his arms. He just wanted to fucking feel something, anything!

Steve couldn’t sleep he had no appetite and if he didn’t have to report to Fury on a semi regular basis he would probably be curled up in bed wasting the days away.

God, this was all Starks fault and Steve was angry so fucking angry.

He had been fine he was doing good he was acclimating for Christ sake. But Tony just had to come in like a tornado and wreck his world.

It was just a kiss it was just one drunken kiss it didn’t mean anything. At least that was what Steve kept telling himself. Thoughts of that night started to float unbidden into his mind. He pushed harder desperate to block out the image of soft bottomless eyes and even softer mouth, pink bubble gum tongue peaking out from between pale lips. Steve focused on the pounding noise of his feet hitting the pavement….thuck…thuck…thuck. But all he could hear was the sweet wet noise of two mouths moving against each other perfectly, in a rhythm that defied their familiarity with each other. It wasn’t like any first kiss he had ever experience it didn’t feel like a first kiss bubbling and awkward. It felt like he had been kissing Tony his whole life… it felt familiar and safe. It felt like coming home.  And for someone as home sick as Steve, that was a dangerous feeling.

 

He stopped suddenly outside his apartment building slamming his hands against the brick hard enough to sting. He hung his head between his shoulders gasping for breath. His whole body was trembling from the exertion. “ _Just like you trembled after Tony pulled away from the kiss_.” whispered his traitorous mind.

 

“SHUT UP!” his voice cracked on the words. God he must look like a deranged manic. Steve viciously pushed away from the wall and started to run again, but not before he felt the buzzing against his thigh. As pre-occupied as he had been these last few weeks he was still a boy scout at heart. He never shirked his responsibilities as much as he may have wanted too. He reach into the pockets of his sweats and pulled out the small offensive little black square everyone called a phone and answered the call without checking the id.

“Hello” Steve gasped. He looked at his watch, who the hell was calling him at 1:30 in the morning.

 

“Get to the Hellicarrier now. Its Stark, he’s in critical condition.” The line went dead. Steve pulled the phone away from his face. A cold feeling of dread seized his lungs. He looked to see who had called. The voice sounded unrecognizable, with the frantic noise of a busy hospital in the background. Natasha, of course, only she would think that was a proper way to break some of the most devastating news Steve had ever heard. The words kept replaying in his head as he ran upstairs to change and grab his keys. Stark…critical….Stark….critical. It just played over and over in an endless loop.

 

By the time he got to medical on the Helicarrier, flying through the hallways and shoving people out of his way, they had managed to stabilize Tony. He ran down the hall towards Clint and Natasha the former agitatedly pacing back and forth and the latter sitting calmly in one of the plastic chairs lining the wall.

“What the hell happed?!” Steve asked the minute he got to Natasha. He glanced up at Clint he could see unshed tears pooling in his eyes making them look larger and more innocent than they had any right to look. The archer, too stubborn to let them fall, just kept blinking them back and angrily biting his lower lip until specks of blood could be seen rising to the surface. Steve looked back at Natasha desperate for an answer to his question, but also wishing he could swallow the words back down. Because once those words were out there was no going back and he wasn’t sure he could handle the reality that was going to formed once his question was answered.

“His heart stopped in route, Clint was able to administer CPR and get his heart going again, but just barely. Once we got him onto a stretcher and rolled into medical he flat lined again. They have him stable…for now.” He had never heard Natasha sound so cold so detached he wanted to reach out and grab her and just shake her. But he knew better, he knew this was just a defense mechanism for her. He clenched his hands into fists until his nails broke skin. He took a deep breath and kneeled down in front of her, tentatively placing his hand on the armrest to steady himself, being careful not to touch her.

“You didn’t answer my question Nat.” He choked out the words with dread.

“Heroin…it was fucking heroin. He overdosed on fucking heroin!” By the end of his statement Clint was shouting at an inhuman volume. He turned and viciously punched the wall leaving a fist-sized dent behind. Clint spun around again and walked away blood dripping from his fist. Steve finally saw the tears falling from his eyes as he walked away anger, sadness and no small amount of guilt etched into the line of his back.

“He seemed fine in the quinjet. He was joking with Clint one minute and then dying the next.”

Steve looked back at Natasha at hearing those whispered words but all he saw was Tony. His too soft mouth smiling at him wet with saliva, his eyes clouded with alcohol but filled with happiness. All he saw was that happiness slipping away as he pushed Tony back, as Steve jumped away from him and his enticing warmth as if he had been shot. All he saw was dread filling those soft brown eyes as Steve viciously wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. All he saw was Tony’s eyes filling with fear and anguish as he cruelly stated in no uncertain terms.

“I’m not a faggot.”

All Steve saw was Tony’s eyes filling with tears as he walked away.

 

 


End file.
